


Try, Try Again

by BlackCats



Category: Kagerou Project, Mekakucity Actors
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 16:11:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCats/pseuds/BlackCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They were going to take a trip to the city, and that was that, she said.<br/>(Hibiya, Hiyori, and stubbornness--even now.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Try, Try Again

Hiyori set her ultimatum—and he pretended, for a second, that her every  _word_ wasn’t an ultimatum—and he had no choice but to comply in the end.

That didn’t mean he didn’t argue.

It was just…

His initial objections fell on deaf  _(uncaring)_ ears.

He tried anyway.

“I…I don’t think my parents’ll allow it. The city’s pretty far away, you know?”

She continued filing her nails, the  _scratch-scratch-scratch_ a sharp, repetitive sound.

“Like I said earlier, on the phone!  _Especially_ with just the two of us, I mean…”

_Scratch-scratch-scratch._

“I just…don’t see it happening,” he mumbled weakly, his voice nearing complete inaudibility toward the end.

She finally stopped in order to spare him a single, scathing glance that said volumes in a blink.  _Make it work._

Hibiya shrank deeper in his seat, wanting to bury himself in the pillows like an ostrich’s head in dirt. “I’ll…figure something out.”

Her eyes, her face, they didn’t say  _“That’s what I thought.”_ because that’d mean acknowledging he had ever put up any sort of resistance in the first place.

And Hiyori Asahina was above that.

~***~

His first attempt was met with immediate refusal, which he’d expected, but that didn’t make the derisive rebuttal from his father any more pleasant.

Hibiya could make himself fold up, shutdown, practically  _vanish_ —at least, in spirit—within a matter of seconds, and that was precisely what he did, only coming out of that reflexive, apologetic trance once his eyes clapped upon the green fields in his backyard.

The spires of the city on the horizon clawed at the sky like an eagle’s talons, sharp and foreboding. He thought about what it’d be like to possess a bird’s eye, to see far into the distance and prepare for what was to come as he brushed the hair of the brunette doll in his hand.

He prepared for round two with a forlorn sigh.

~***~

“Stop slouching,” Hiyori snapped suddenly, and Hibiya sat straight up on reflex.

“S-Sorry! I’m just a little—“

Her frown warned him not to continue his excuse, but he did anyway, allowing the word to peter off as a sort of halfway-met peace offering.

“—tired.”

“You look even  _more_ pathetic than usual when you’re not even sitting up straight.” She ignored him as she was prone to do, tapping the end of her pen against her desk before scrawling down a series of words. Hibiya watched her curiously, afraid to lean over for a better look, lest he receive some form of punishment in return.

“What are you writing?” he asked at length.

She didn’t pause, didn’t look way once from her paper. “A list of things to do once we get to the city.”

He expected her to tack on an insult about how he was  _gross_ for not helping her with it, but she offered no other commentary or explanation, a look of utter boredom on her face.

Attempt number four would be put into motion once he arrived home; he had a few more hours to relax, yet.

A sweep of the classroom revealed a typical scene. Desks were pushed together for lunch and conversation while half the male population seemed to steal peeks at Hiyori every ten seconds, as if she didn’t notice, as if they weren’t aware of how her lips pulled thinner and thinner as the day wore on.

They didn’t know her very well.

He supposed he didn’t know her perfectly either, but he knew her  _better_ , and that would suffice for now.

“Hey. Stop spacing out.”

Hibiya jumped as her glare brought him crashing down to reality. A nervous hand passed through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck, pushing out a crick that’d developed during his three-hour kowtow the day prior on attempt number three.

“Ack! Sorry…”

Hiyori gave him the privilege of her usual lofty stare before returning to her paper. Those slender, pianist fingers of hers unfortunately covered up more of the page than one would expect. Hibiya swallowed down a sigh as he bit into a rice-cake, ears ringing with the residue of parental scorn.

~***~

Attempt number eight, and he was regretting the adoption of every single one of those herd and guard dogs that his father owned.

The view from the back porch suddenly became a lot more dangerous.

~***~

Hiyori walked with the strong, purposeful strides of someone knowing  _exactly_ what they wanted and how long they were willing to wait to get there. Oftentimes this resulted in Hibiya practically  _jogging_  to keep up with her—being rich and influential must have affected her genes, made her _superhuman_ , not just beautiful.

The sun was a sphere of flaming torment in the sky, and Hibiya was panting from the heat, not unlike those hounds from hell that inhabited his backyard.

Stubbornly, fiercely, he kept pace with her despite it all.

“Hiyori,” he gasped, marveling at how not a single hair of hers was out of place. “Can I ask a question?”

“You just  _did_ ,” was her immediate response, face twisting into a sneer. He hadn’t yet earned enough respect points for this conversation to be worthy of eye-contact, so it wasn’t given.

Try, try again.

“I…I’m  _going_ to ask another question.”

His try for confidence earned a sideways flicker of her eyes toward him; he took that as permission to go ahead, since she didn’t object.

“Why do you hang out with  _me?_  There’s  _got_ to be better options for you than… _well_ ,” he said, and let it drop into oblivion there. Her reply was probably going to shatter what little bit of his pride hadn’t  _already_  been crushed by her, and he was okay with that.

She sighed as if he just asked the most _idiotic question_ imaginable, and then, didn’t even answer.

“Of  _course_ there are.”

Hibiya lifted his eyes to the sky beseechingly, mentally prepping for attempt number nineteen, though he never tuned her out entirely.

“Hey.”

She stopped just as sharply as her tone, pinning him with her predator’s eyes—she’d torn stronger men than  _him_ to pieces before, this much was certain from that look alone. One hand on her hip, and a question on her lips, and he was floored.

“Why do  _you_ hang out with  _me_ all the time?”

He tried to swallow, but his throat was dry and all he got was a painful convulsion that produced an ugly, frantic sound.

“Gross,” she scoffed, eyes slipping closed, and Hibiya shocked  _himself_ with a reply.

“Well, because you’re…unique.”

Her eyes opened quickly. “What are you  _talking_ about?”

Being put on the spot like this was the  _worst_. Hibiya hastily arranged his thoughts into something resembling order, picking and choosing each word carefully, painfully aware of her infamous impatience.

One second too long, and he’d lose his chance.

“I just…” If he only complimented her looks, he’d be a goner for sure, and there was so much _more_ to her than that. “You seem a bit…”

The early summer winds were blowing.

“Lonely, I guess.”

Hiyori was silent for about two and a half seconds before she rolled her eyes, turning on her heel and continuing on. “You’re so lame, Hibiya.”

He followed her with a smile growing on his face, nearly tripping in his haste to keep up.

But he didn’t apologize.

~***~

Attempt twenty-five lasted well into the night, and he spent the time stargazing halfway up a tree, lost in thought.

~***~

“Here.”

Hiyori dumped a bundle of magazines on his lap, and Hibiya yelped, thinking he’d soon be losing all the feeling in his legs as a result of that attack of assorted articles. Picking up one from the top of the stack, he examined it in confusion.

“Fashion magazines?”

“Brush up on them, so you don’t look  _completely_ hideous once we get to the city.” To say Hiyori demanded it would again imply she had to give an actual  _order_  to be obeyed.

He sighed but nodded, like usual. “I’ll…try my best.”

A deadpan stare.

“I mean, I’ll do it!”

She smirked, and his heart practically turned to mush on the spot.

~***~

Attempt twenty-eight brought with it a murder of crows, curious to know if the boy lying face down on the grass was even alive. (He was.)

~***~

News had gotten out— _somehow_ —that he’d be spending some time alone with Hiyori later in the month, and Hibiya wished he could punt himself to the moon. It was all the school could talk about, going on and on for  _days_ ; surely it bothered Hiyori at least a  _little_ bit?

“Th-They…They’re going to think we’re dating,” he said to her as they walked the school. He could already hear the murmurings.

Hiyori wrinkled her nose. One sweep of that killer glare of hers, and she was cleaving gossipers down like blades of grass before a lawnmower. All was well.

When he got no reply besides that, he continued on. Tentatively. “Don’t you have a  _problem_ with that?”

“People are stupid.” She whapped the top of his head with a folded packet of papers, due today. “That  _includes_ you. Did you finally get permission?”

“Working on it,” he answered feebly.

“You’re pushing it pretty close…” Her loathing of that couldn’t be clearer.

“I-I’ll get it! I promised I would anyway, right?”

Hiyori regarded him evenly as she took her seat, a princess descending upon her throne. “So  _what?_ You actually  _keep_  your promises?”

Hibiya pondered that. It was a simple question, really.

“Of course I do.” His hands clenched on the desk’s surface and she blinked once, letting out a scoff of bonafide laughter.

“You couldn’t be  _any_ lamer.”

Hibiya offered up a shrug of his shoulders and a sheepish grin, which she took with great dignity before engaging in a conversation with a gaggle of nearby girls.

He doodled constellations in his journal and promptly failed to answer the instructor’s question, later.

~***~

The thirty-first time was the charm.

~***~

Hiyori watched him work on that  _ridiculous_ paper he promised his father in exchange for the trip—an elaborate response to an elaborate lie, hopefully  _never_  to be found out. Exhaustion dragged at his fingers and at his eyes, but Hibiya continued diligently onwards, as he always did.

“So, you don’t regret it?” she asked in a voice thick with expectation.

Hibiya glanced up at her and smiled wryly.

“Well…no, actually.”

**Author's Note:**

> These two are kinda unappreciated at times, you know?


End file.
